August 10th, 2007

Mythos Beta Patch
Flagship Studios is happy to announce that we've put up a new update in the Mythos Beta Test! We've listened to your feedback and made a whole host of adjustments. A partial list of changes follows:

AI

 * New animations across the board for ALL males (females coming in a following patch). Overall, just much higher quality - we like 'em!
 * Pathing fixes - no more running through the fountain! (among other things)
 * AI 'thinking' speed has been increased, making monsters respond a little faster.
 * Animations blend a little bit smoother.

Classes

 * Pyromancer adjustments
 * Flaming Serpents has an extra projectile, is not as erratic, and has reduced casting cost. Much more useful.
 * Wisps damage more potent, cool down reduced, ai improved, damage doesn't get nerfed past lvl 10.
 * Colossus - 50% faster, more aggressive, better AI and following, doubled(!) damage.
 * Mana Glyph - increased range, and a bug preventing it from 'hitting' when it should have fixed.
 * Ember nova does a bit more damage.
 * Meteor - reduced damage 10%.
 * Blinding Flash GREATLY improved - greater range, improved effect, less cost.
 * Field of fire weakened just a bit - 10% less damage, 10% more mana.
 * Bloodletter adjustments
 * Minotaur Stomp improved.
 * Slicing Dervish adjusted.
 * Bloodlings have a slightly higher chance to raise to start, and at the tier jumps, make a MUCH larger increase. They also last longer by default, hit harder, and with better accuracy to start - and strength and accuracy improvements due to investment are MUCH MUCH larger (especially after the tier jumps).
 * Gadgeteer adjustments
 * Radial turret fires 6 more shots (16 total), does better damage, costs less to cast.
 * Boom Zippers reduced casting cost a bit, a little better damage early on.
 * Accuracy drone does a LOT more to hit bonus increase.
 * Evasive Maneuvers got a massive boost, and is now percentage based.

Other Skill Changes

 * Dual wielding gets the benefit of Bladed Mastery.
 * Masteries shouldn't leave weird numbers in your weapons.
 * Blood Rage lasts the appropriate time.
 * Adrenaline Rush & Gadgeteer Sprint last appropriate times.
 * Bloodletting Aura stops if mana runs out.
 * Brilliant Aura has proper description and values.
 * Healing and curative Gadgets actually work!
 * Fanning the Flames now works and stacks properly (values had to be nerfed a bit as a result - whew!)
 * Mana glyph shouldn't draw from breakables.
 * Shouldn't get health draws from breakables.
 * Flame Serpents shouldn't fire on the other side of close monsters.
 * Flaming Dart is faster (casts faster too), and can hit multiple targets (passes thru).
 * Many skills now not interruptible (notably summoning skills, gadget skills, and last-resort skills). Should make them much more useful.
 * AnchorStone can still be interrupted, and has a long cast - but no cool down.
 * Various misspellings in skills fixed.
 * Blinding Flash won't trigger other effects (ignite, fanning the flames).

Quests / Mobs / Combat

 * Random quests! To give you stuff to do as we continue adding more content (lots to come!). We will continue to add new types and flavors of random quests going forward as well to help them keep from being too stale.
 * New level type - the Mines.
 * Higher level maps - so you don't get quite so stuck around level 15.
 * New monster types - Scorpion and Zombie monsters and variations.
 * New monster variations of old ones - there was a bug keeping you from seeing anything like the number of monster types you should have been.
 * A new 'normal' quest or two.
 * Quest dialogs now show '!' '?' before multiple-topic dialogs, so you can tell the state of individual quests.
 * Timberwolves don't get stuck at level 6!
 * Shouldn't see nothing but Midas Flitters at higher levels.
 * Singflitters can fire thorny projectiles from their tails.
 * Burning Colossus doesn't drop items.
 * Sockets not visible on Bargain Hunter merchant panes.
 * Intro quest a little different now - less puppies and people.
 * Lazarus Beetle can resurrect nearby undead.
 * Dialog buttons arranged horizontally instead of vertically, for clarity.
 * New props and 'church' like layouts for intro quest (pews, bookcases, statues, tables, etc.) Plus drunk zombies.
 * Various HP, damage, and to hit adjustments to monsters all over the place.
 * Inconsistencies in attack rates between races/genders fixed.
 * Monsters shouldn't shoot at you when you are just out of range, and vice versa.
 * Various changes to how damage is applied given differences in level - lower level monsters were doing less damage than normal to you ( not anymore ) and you were doing more to them (also not anymore.)
 * Beetles aren't so darn dumb.
 * Traveling salesman name fixes.
 * Some more wolf pruning (more to be done!)
 * Urax Shamans can resurrect Urax Runts.
 * For quests requiring collection of multiple items, you can see your current count and total in the quest log.
 * Teleporting monsters teleport less often.
 * Fixed some issues with the Traveling salesman. Their inventory is shared for all players in the instance.

Sound

 * A new music track for some dungeons.
 * Reverb effects (catacombs are echo-y).

UI

 * Rescalable UI! A dropdown in the options will let you dynamically scale up the interface for those of you at high res, or who don't like teensy-weensy buttons.
 * Mouse sensitivity slider.
 * Friends panel - keep track of your buddies and their online status.
 * Global/Local chat panels - so you don't have to listen to EVERYBODY.
 * More drastic differences in the arrangements of levels.
 * Various changes to button names so it is clearer what they do.
 * Chat box displays behind everything now, instead of partially over the top.
 * Fix for alt-tab unfriendliness.
 * Rearranged item tooltips and colors a bit.

Weapons / Items

 * 70+ new weapons! Weapons are now going to be a lot denser and the time limit has been adjusted so upgrades will come quicker.
 * Rifles now have different damage ratings that are spread across the shots, as opposed to per-shot.
 * Should be able to sell socketed items without issues.
 * Breakables not highlightable after breaking.
 * Some of the overpowered socketables were nerfed a bit.
 * More breakables/chests (especially in the overworld).
 * Item qualities (superior, etc.) properly changing the armor/damages again.
 * Fixes for bow, crossbow, and wand weapon ranges.
 * Adjustments to item magic quality rarities.
 * Adjustments to the relative rarities of different kinds of chests.
 * Arrows and Crossbow bolts fly a little farther.
 * Crossbow bolts can pierce and hit multiple monsters (As a result crossbow may need to have its speed reduced, we will see).
 * Damage bonuses from armor/weapons only apply to weapon shots, not spell shots.
 * The spiked shield with no requirements has been fixed.

Misc.

 * We have doors again! Only in Gothic-y tilesets right now (more coming).
 * Epic maps more expensive.
 * Automap tweaked for visibility.
 * Low health heartbeat works again.
 * In 'low' shadow mode, you get little simple shadows under characters and objects, which looks much nicer.